Broken Man
by mirrorshine
Summary: Response to our Barret&Cloud challenge. Read for full details. NOT Yaoi. Barret never expected he'd be the one to save the broken man.


A while ago me and a pal on here set up a challenge. Our Barret&Cloud challenge. If you just go on my profile you'll see the whole write up. Basically it can be anything you want. We figured it'd be hard to write the pair and to be honest, it isn't that bad. And we're pretty disappointed that no one raised to our challenge. So here we are again.

Basically:

But the main idea is for someone to write a short story with the characters Cloud Strife and Barret Wallace, both from the FFVII game. We thought this might be a really hard pair to write so we're challenging you to do this. It can be whatever you want i.e poem, songfic, drabble or short story. Also if you want a real challenge how about a guyxguy fic, that's called yaoi right? But it doesn't have to, could just be a friendship thing.

If you do do this challenge, make sure to drop me a message as I'd love to read it and also I don't always come on this website, so I might miss it.

So go ahead and go crazy!

So this is my interpretation.

* * *

It was one of those days, where everything felt at peace. Barret couldn't describe what it was, but everything felt so peaceful and relaxing. It was a brilliant sunny warm day with not a single cloud in the sky.

He'd dropped by at the bar for the weekend to see his adopted daughter and spend some much needed quality time with her. Marlene had pleaded with him to take her to the abandoned church and she even managed to convince him to take Denzel along too. He liked the kid, but he knew there had to be some degree of awkwardness for the young boy.

Barret had driven them out and pulled up by the church. His dark eyes landed on the dirty bike parked up outside. He frowned knowing how much the blonde owner of the bike took care in gleaming it to perfection. Tifa had said he'd disappeared at early hours in the morning and she said she was pretty sure it was an anniversary of Cloud's old Soldier friend's death.

"You kids wait out here." He spoke gruffly, knowing the kids would listen. He threw the door open to his truck and walked towards the closed doors. He was sure the blonde inside probably had already heard him by now so didn't bother to knock.

He pushed the doors open and quickly closed them behind him. As he expected the blonde warrior was sat in front of the pool of water, his previous blade standing upright at the back of the church in a memorial. His own blade was tossed to the side, like he might have thrown it in a sudden fury.

"Spiky." Barret muttered, before walking forwards listening to the floorboards screech under his weight. The younger man didn't reply as Barret sat down in one of the remaining standing up pews. "You okay?" The large man wasn't one for sentimental attitudes, he always looked at things in one way.

'_What's happened has happened and you can't do nothin' about it.' _

The younger man lifted his head slightly and turned to face Barret. Barret didn't need a second glance to see Cloud's dull mako eyes and his red cheeks stained slightly from tears. It hurt him to see the once leader of Avalanche like this. But he knew deep down to him, Cloud was just a kid. The thought made him smirk slightly, this kid had sure gone through a lot. Too much probably than anyone should ever have to go through.

Everyone had this idea that Cloud Strife was a hero and with that brand came many other descriptions. Confident, positive, brave, strong and so much more. But really this guy was just like every other human being on the planet. That he deserved moments of weakness and could cry out for help, not that he ever did.

"It's been three years Barret." Cloud spoke softly his blue eyes drifting up to the blade. "And I can still relive those moments over and over again."

Barret fell back into the pew. "It's good you can remember, I'm not gonna lie about that to you." He replied, Cloud looked up at him half glaring before his face relaxed and then nodded in understanding. As much as those memories haunted him, he'd never want to forget them; he wouldn't want to forget what Zack had done for him.

"But that's no excuse for you to walk round with this damn guilt on your shoulders all of the time." He added, fed up of seeing days when Cloud would just wake up and decide that everything that had happened was his fault.

Cloud turned away and stared at the water.

"This guy, Zack. He did what he believed what was right, just like all the times you've decided to do what you thought was right." Barret stared at the blonde. He wasn't sure if the warrior ever realised that he'd been in exactly the same positions as his friend. "You need to set your mind straight." He ordered, this time getting a reaction from the blonde. He turned to face him, his eyes narrowed and full of anger.

"You just don't realise Cloud." He paused. "The times you've been forced into fights, like with Sephiroth by yourself. Then you were gone for a while, we all saw that explosion on top of one of the buildings." "And what you're feeling right now, is what we were all feeling then." Barret leaned forwards, knowing he'd caught the others attention. "Now you tell me, would you wanted all of us to be blamin' ourselves? Would you have wanted Teef to be killin' herself that she thought she should have done somethin'?"

"No, I guess not..." Cloud mumbled slowly, the realisation of what Barret was saying hitting him.

"Well that's exactly what Zack was thinkin'!" He cried, hoping Cloud understood. "He wouldn't want you to go round blamin' yourself like you should have done somethin'!" Barret stood up straight and Cloud followed suit.

"You're right Barret." Cloud answered, a brief smile swept across his face as he turned to the blade.

"So no more of this, got it?" Barret snapped, pointing at the smaller man. Cloud let out a small laugh and shook his head. He clapped a hand onto the other's shoulder and smiled.

Barret never expected he'd be the one to save the broken man.


End file.
